I know of only one man who has the courage to say that he hates music. It is his misfortune, not his fault, and without doubt there is something wrong about his inner ear. Still, I always wonder why his frank and honest confession is received with a kind of pitying contempt, as if he had writ himself down to be both a brute-beast and a heathen.
Love music, and for some unexplained reason you at once have a profound scorn for all such as do not. My friend who hates music understands and loves both pictures and poetry, and, goodness knows, there are plenty who do not! And yet I have never heard him inveigh against those who love neither. Yes, music may be a divine art, but it is certainly not a charitable art.
Even as long as one can remember, the study of music and the making of musical instruments have been terribly on the increase. Mediocrity, that might do excellent work in other fields, strums away at the piano or scratches away at the violin, or with quavering voice sings those songs which have inspired the poet to write:
I am saddest when I sing, And so are those who hear me!
The world is full of music schools, that turn out thousands of young musicians every year, who take to music instead of dressmaking or plumbing or any other useful employment, and these are let loose on a foolish world and proceed in turn to make martyrs of the defenceless infants of our land. And it is curious, too, and instructive to observe, considering the vast sums of money and the amount of time spent in the pursuit of music, how rarely one can find any one who plays or sings well enough to give even a little pleasure.
The possible reason may be that the standard of mediocrity has become so terribly high! For the halting amateur of to-day might have served as a Paderewski of the past. Our ears have grown hopelessly fastidious.
No more is the afternoon caller regaled with _The Happy Farmer_, as performed by the talented child of the house, and listened to with real pleasure by unsophisticated grandparents. We know too much to listen to the talented child, and as for the talented child it generally developes into a young person who has nervous prostration at the mere idea of playing before anyone. For what purpose, then, these hours of five-finger agony and those enormous bills which might have been paid for so much better results?